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Friday, August 07, 2009

The Caribbean Flamingo

Welcome everyone that is stopping by from Abe Lincoln's Brookville Daily Photo. I haven't been able to ID his mystery plant yet, but I haven't given up.

Here I typically blog on natural areas in Ohio, but this week, I've been posting images that I took this weekend at the Columbus Zoo. This is a Caribbean Flamingo, Phoenicopterus ruber. The zoo has a nice colony of these interesting birds, and you can get quite close to them. In the wild, this bird lives in the Caribbean, along the Yucatan Peninsula, and the northernmost shores of South America.

2 comments:

Hi again, Tom. Somebody left a comment -- a horticulturist -- says it is a "Smoke Bush." I don't know what kind of seeds they produce or if birds transport them but I never even thought of a smoke bush. I don't know how long a seed might lay in fertile soil before it sprouts but 20 or more years ago we had a smoke bush in that general area. Surely this is not from that bush if this is what that is.

You are welcome. And thank you for your link. I just looked smokebush up, and yes, that really does look like it. I'm not sure how those seeds are dispersed, but sometimes things like this can happen. Many plants have seeds that can stay viable in the seedbank for a decades if not centuries.

I've got a book in my office that lists all the plants in Ohio that are known to be native and naturalized, even if it is just "over the garden wall" so to speak. I'll take a look at it on Tuesday and see if smokebush is one of the species that has been known to escape cultivation. Possibly a seed could have come from a neighbor's house.

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This blog is my place to record and share what I see around me. Here you'll find my photographs, pictures, and artwork of Ohio's nature and wildlife. I welcome comments. Be sure to subscribe to my feed if you'd like to get the most latest updates delivered to the feed reader of your choice.